Morphogenesis of foot-and-mouth disease virus. I. Role of procapsids as virion Precursors.

The role of procapsids during foot-and-mouth disease virus multiplication was studied on infected BHK-21 cells. Purified virus and procapsids were obtained by treating the infected cytoplasmic extracts with RNase and EDTA. The synthesis of virus, procapsids, and total particles was determined in pulse-chase experiments. A precursor-product relationship between procapsids and virions was obtained. The results show that the rate of synthesis of total particles (virus + procapsids) was linear from the addition of the label and was identical to that corresponding to virions. Therefore, the speed of the morphogenetic process as well as the existence of a precursor pool of structural proteins was established. Furthermore, the rate of virus synthesis from procapsids was identical to the rate of synthesis of procapsids from their structural precursors. A quantitative recovery of label from procapsids into virions was obtained by the use of cycloheximide or tosyl-lysine chloromethyl ketone. Under these conditions, virus synthesis proceeds, indicating that these drugs do not affect the morphogenetic step studied in this paper.